Jorge Guillén was born in Valladolid. His life paralleled that of his friend Pedro Salinas, whom he succeeded as a Spanish teaching assistant at the Collège de Sorbonne in the University of Paris from 1917 to 1923. He was also a professor at the University of Murcia from 1925 to 1929, where he collaborated with Verso y Prosa, a literary review founded by Juan Guerrero Ruiz, Oxford University, from 1929 to 1931, and the University of Seville from 1932 to 1938. Exiled, he was forced to establish himself in the United States to continue his post - secondary teaching. He was a professor of Spanish at Wellesley College from 1941 to 1957. During this time he also served for a year as the Norton professor at Harvard University.

He retired to Italy, where he married for the second time. He later moved to the city of Málaga. In 1977, he was awarded the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, one of the most prestigious prizes for Spanish language writers. He died in Málaga in 1984, age 91.

Because of his inclination to pure poetry, some critics consider Guillén to be a disciple of poet Juan Ramón Jiménez. Guillén broke into the literary scene at a relatively late age: his first book, Cántico, was published when he was 35 years old.

Cántico was initially published in the Revista de Occidente and included only 75 poems. Three successively larger editions were later published. The final version, published in 1950 in Buenos Aires, consisted of 334 poems divided into five sections: Al aire de tu vuelo, Las horas situadas, El pájaro en la mano, Aquí mismo and Pleno ser. In this work, he basked in the joy of existence, the harmony of the universe, the peak of humanity, and the integration of the poet into a universe of perfection where one more often finds himself loved. Optimism and serenity characterize the poetry of his first book.

With the experience of the Spanish Civil War, he wrote his second book of poetry, Clamor. This second work shows an awareness for the temporary nature of life and allows the introduction of the negative side of history: misery, war, pain, death. It is composed of three parts: Maremágnum (1957), whose central focus - Luzbel desconcertado and La hermosa y los excéntricos - presented a lack of harmony; Que van a dar en el mar (1960), where the idea of the continuity brought by death is developed; and A la altura de las circumstancias (1963), where the struggle to re-establish balance appears. If Cántico exalted the perfection of creation, Clamor tore it down. In spite of this, the book was not perceived as an overly anguished or pessimistic work because in it Guillén re-assesses his will to live.

Homenaje was published in 1967. As it is indicated in its title, Guillén honored outstanding people of the world of art and science using the techniques of dramatic monologue and of imagery.

He gave the title Aire nuestro to the compilation of his three great poetry books prior to 1968. He would later publish Y otros poemas (1973) and Final (1982).

The complexity of Guillén's work resides in his ideal of pure poetry, which can be summarized as:

1. Removal of anecdotes;
2. Transforming adjectives into nouns;
3. Lack of verbs;
4. Linguistic accuracy; and
5. Thematic concentration.